Background
Pierre Tal-Coat was born on December 12, 1905 in Clohars-Carnoet, France.
Pierre Tal-Coat was born on December 12, 1905 in Clohars-Carnoet, France.
During the period from 1912 to 1914, Pierre attended primary school. Some time later, in 1918, he apprenticed as a blacksmith. Tal-Coat also studied art at the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière between 1924 and 1926.
Tal-Coat started his working life as a clerk to a notary in 1923 in Arzano. In 1924, he found work as a decorator at the Keraluc porcelain factory in Quimper, creating characters and landscapes of the Brittany countryside.
During Pierre's military service, between 1925-1926, he met Auguste Fabre and Henri Bénézit and one year later, in 1927, exhibited in their gallery under the name of Tal-Coat.
During the 1930s, the painter created bold, figurative canvases: portraits of women, self-portraits and landscapes. In 1936, Tal-Coat protested against the Spanish war through a series of paintings, The Massacres.
Pierre Tal-Coat was conscripted into the army in 1939 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and later Ermenonville and demobilized in 1940 in Montauban. Setting himself up in Aix-en-Provence, which had become the refuge of many artists, including André Marchand, Charles Albert Cingria and Cendrars, he participated in the exhibition "Twenty young painters of French tradition", organized in 1941 and later exhibited at the Galerie de France in 1943. Returning to Paris in 1945, he participated in the first exhibition of the Salon de Mai.
After a two-year stay in Paris, Tal-Coat returned to Aix, where he met André Masson. His encounter with the philosopher Henri Maldiney and the poet André Du Bouchet, who would become his friends, led him to a decisive turning point. Pierre took note of impressions, states, which he re-inscribed in canvases crossed with signs, lines, punctuations, where the contact with nature reunited with a spiritual quest. Thus, his painting became non-figurative.
In 1956, six of his paintings were shown at the Venice Biennale. Some time later, in 1963, he collaborated with Joan Miró and Ubac in the creation of the Maeght Foundation.
A large retrospective exhibition, devoted to his work, was held at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1976.
Ecorché
Proche de l'ete
Fonds rocheux II
Brown Composition
Enigmatique
Insecte
Untitled
Untitled
Derriere le Miroir (Print)
Composition
Et vient la nuit
Arlequin
Composition
Composition IV
Nature morte sur la table
Fumure
Du côté de la Drôme
Untitled
Untitled
Revif
Solitude dans la Plaine
Dans le bourdonnement I
En grimpant
Dans les champs
Enseveli I
Ainsi qu'un doigt geant
Nature morte au pichet et raisins
Galerie Maeght
Divers Sillions
Untitled
Untitled
Age de fer II
Qui lève
Cascade (Eau coulant entre rochers)
Ponctue
Femme allongée
Au matin
Composition
Chemin vif
Affiche n. 92
Mèches d'herbes
Self-Portrait
Untitled
Composition
Unknown title
Dans le bourdonnement II
Vol d'oiseaux I
Vif
Blue Vase
Still Life
Penchée II
Rencontre